


Lashes.

by Elevensins



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers for Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1602905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elevensins/pseuds/Elevensins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The things Tony obsesses about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lashes.

He had the most incredible eyelashes.

Of all the things to notice about Captain America, it was the eyelashes that Tony couldn't ignore. Not the biceps, not the muscular chest, not the square of his jaw or the way when he smiled he radiated. Well, he noticed those things as well, but the eyelashes stuck out more than anything else.

Especially in the rare times Tony actually saw him sleeping. Not just closing his eyes for a moment, because then those eyelashes fluttered and suddenly those beautiful blue eyes were looking at him curiously, but actually asleep. 

It had only happened twice. The first time just after the battle of New York, and Tony was regrettably too out of it right then to do anything but notice Captain America in his chair with a fist against his cheek nodding off rather than eating. He made a comment about the senior citizen needing a nap, and Steve never even heard him. Banner threw a crumpled up napkin at him instead. So he peered a little closer, and saw them. They fluttered briefly but didn't actually open until Thor nudged him.

The second time was after he and Pepper split up. He’d royally screwed the pooch on that one, and acknowledged it in order to salvage what he could of any kind of relationship with her. Stark Industries without Pepper Potts was like the ocean without wildlife. Or maybe it was like a forest without a fire or a fire without a forest or something. Pepper was better than he was at analogies anyway.

She had forgiven him, or at least was willing to give him a chance at redeeming himself again. And he’d gone under the knife and had the shards of shrapnel finally removed. Pepper decided this was good enough, and remained. But any hope of a further relationship with her was in the scrap heap. 

“You make it impossible to love you, Tony Stark. I’d have to be superhuman to keep up with you.”

She did, of course, he knew it. But she hesitated anymore, distanced herself and put up a line he was not to cross in talking to her anymore. She meant it when she said she wasn’t willing to watch him continue to behave recklessly and get himself or her or both of them dead. 

He didn't blame her. He just counted his blessings that she hadn't completely left.

Then someone asked if he’d heard about Captain America. He hadn't, of course, though he knew about Hydra. They re-emerged like a damn snake that had been hiding inside the hound dog that was S.H.I.E.L.D. Which meant he needed to step up to the plate yet again, despite having destroyed all his suits of armor, and help the government establish national security. This took most of his time, and it blessedly took his mind off of his troubles with Pepper.

But Captain America had actually been seriously hurt. Curious, Tony found out what hospital had him and visited. Even had to show credentials to get into his room, security was tight. They’d never been terribly close, his ego clashing with Steve’s selflessness. But when it came down to the wire, he admired Cap’s ability to bind them all together. In the heat of battle, when hope was nearly lost, he gave them orders and they obeyed them. And they won.

He owed it to him to at least drop by and say hello. 

Tony had never seen Steve look that awful. Not even after fighting dozens, if not hundreds, of aliens flooding the streets of New York. Someone took a frying pan to his face from the looks of it, one eye so swollen he was pretty sure it wasn't going to open anytime soon. He’d been stabbed and shot multiple times. No normal human being would have survived that amount of trauma.

This was not when he noticed anything about eyelashes, the face in front of him barely resembled Captain America. 

That didn't happen until he came back a few days later. The difference was so vast he wondered if he had seen the wrong guy the first time. Bruises already mostly faded, just some scrapes left, half healed. No one healed that fast. No one except a super soldier whose body regenerated itself well enough to preserve a man for seventy years in an ice flow. 

Tony had to admit, it was impressive to see. So he sat down next to Steve and reached out to nudge his shoulder and see if he might wake up. But his hand stopped as he noticed those eyelashes. Impossibly long. He’d never even seen anyone with lashes like those. There was such an urge to reach out and touch them that he nearly did so.

Except behind him someone cleared a throat and he yanked his hand back fast. Sam Wilson stood behind him, giving him an odd look. So Tony immediately began the game of distraction by asking about the jet pack wings he’d read about on the internet. By the time he finally left the hospital, Steve hadn't woken up yet, but Sam was on board for a new pair of wings made with Stark technologies.

And Tony was left with the memory of Steve’s face. Which stuck with him long after he heard he was released from the hospital and disappeared, run off doing who only knew what. Until the day Steve showed up practically at his doorstep, shouldering someone who looked broken both inside and out.

Tony didn't even hesitate to say yes when asked if he would help. He let them think it was his ego they were talking to when someone said the man’s arm was so high tech a cybernetic limb that even he couldn't have conceived of its design. Sure, it struck a chord with him. But he did it because he saw the pain in Steve’s eyes. This was Bucky Barnes, he explained. Who was just as important a figure in history, that dark and pained face found in the Smithsonian alongside the portraits of other Howling Commandos.

Bucky was well cared for, and Tony found the arm to be another distraction. He snorted at the idea of it being beyond him. Oh it was beautifully designed, but a puzzle he could solve and fix. Even make improvements on eventually. Of course that was just the arm. There wasn't much he could do for the broken mind of the man it was attached to.

Steve visited with Bucky every day and Tony hung around to listen, pretending to be busy working on designs or improvements for the arm. Steve was always hopeful, and sometimes Bucky remembered things. But he’d never be the same man Steve knew in the 1940s. So when Bucky went to sleep and Steve retreated to the room Tony provided him with, Tony would bring a drink and let the man talk to him for awhile.

To his amazement, he did. Steve opened up about everything, just needing someone to listen to him. It didn't even matter that the man who heard him was the great, egotistical Tony Stark. Their rocky dislike of each other faded. Tony would get a little tipsy and say too much sometimes. But Steve couldn't get tipsy, let alone drunk. 

He was definitely tipsy the night he said something about Steve’s eyelashes. He watched him blush and grinned. They were sitting on the couch together, and Tony had such an opportunity to lean in and kiss Captain America. Instead, he joked about it. That’s how Tony approached things he felt unsure of. He cracked a joke, and gauged the response.

Steve only told him he’d rather it not happen while he was drunk. Because he wasn't the type of guy to take advantage of anyone who was inebriated. Tony suddenly wished he were completely sober or that Steve wasn't such a moralistic sonovagun. 

The next night he didn't bring any alcohol. Neither of them wasted time talking. 

Now it was the third time Tony had ever seen Steve’s eyelashes while he was asleep. He woke up first with the rays of dawn shining through the windows. Tony always had Jarvis keep the light blocked out in his rooms, but Steve liked to wake up with the sun.  


Tony propped himself up on his elbow and studied Steve’s sleeping face. This time there wasn't going to be anyone walking in to interrupt him, so he reached out just to feel the way those lashes fluttered against his fingers. 

Just for a heartbeat, before Steve inevitably woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for two friends who enjoy this pairing. My intent was not to remove, belittle, or kill off Pepper Potts in order to make the pair work. I felt it perfectly plausible that she finally decided Tony Stark's brand of insanity wasn't her cup of tea.


End file.
